Trial reportBMC infectious diseases2013
Procalcitonin guided antibiotic therapy of acute exacerbations of asthma: a randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in BMC infectious diseases, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Procalcitonin-guided antibiotic therapy may shorten length of treatment and may improve survival-a systematic review and meta-analysis.Critical care (London, England) · 2023Pooled it
- Antibiotics for exacerbations of asthma.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Antibiotic stewardship interventions in hospitals in low-and middle-income countries: a systematic review.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2018Pooled it
- Procalcitonin to initiate or discontinue antibiotics in acute respiratory tract infections.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- Serum Procalcitonin Measurement and Viral Testing to Guide Antibiotic Use for Respiratory Infections in Hospitalized Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2015Trial
- Procalcitonin guidance for reduction of antibiotic use in patients hospitalized with severe acute exacerbations of asthma: a randomized controlled study with 12-month follow-up.Critical care (London, England) · 2014Trial
- Severe Acute Bronchial Asthma with Sepsis: Determining the Status of Biomarkers in the Diagnosis of the Disease.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Procalcitonin as an Endogenous Biomarker for Mastitis in Cows.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Promising treatment biomarkers in asthma.Frontiers in drug safety and regulation · 2023Review
- Antimicrobial Stewardship Using Biomarkers: Accumulating Evidence for the Critically Ill.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Treatment Response Biomarkers in Asthma and COPD.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Association of Antibiotic Treatment With Outcomes in Patients Hospitalized for an Asthma Exacerbation Treated With Systemic Corticosteroids.JAMA internal medicine · 2019Article
- Article
- Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship: A Growing Frontier-Combining Myxovirus Resistance Protein A With Other Biomarkers to Improve Antibiotic Use.Open forum infectious diseases · 2018Article
- Predictors of treatment failure and clinical stability in patients with community acquired pneumonia.Annals of translational medicine · 2017Review
- Using Procalcitonin to Guide Antibiotic Therapy.Open forum infectious diseases · 2017Review
- Procalcitonin as a biomarker in equine chronic pneumopathies.BMC veterinary research · 2016Article
- Infection biomarkers in primary care patients with acute respiratory tract infections-comparison of Procalcitonin and C-reactive protein.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2016Article
- Pulmonary Remodeling in Equine Asthma: What Do We Know about Mediators of Inflammation in the Horse?Mediators of inflammation · 2016Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThis randomized controlled trial aimed to evaluate whether the serum procalcitonin (PCT) level can be utilized to guide the use of antibiotics in the treatment of acute exacerbations of asthma.
methodsA total of 293 consecutive patients with suspected asthma attacks from February 2005 to July 2010 participated in this study. 225 patients completed the study. Serum PCT levels, and other inflammatory biomarkers of all patients were measured. In addition to the standard treatment, the control group received antibiotics according to the attending physicians' discretions, while the patients in the PCT group were treated with antibiotics according to serum PCT concentrations. Antibiotics usage was strongly discouraged when the PCT concentration was below 0.1 μg/L; discouraged when the PCT concentration was between 0.1 μg/L and 0.25 μg/L; or encouraged when the PCT concentration was above 0.25 μg/L. The primary endpoint was the determination of antibiotics usage. The second endpoints included the diagnostic accuracy of PCT and other laboratory biomarkers the effectiveness of asthma control, secondary ED visits, hospital re-admissions, repeated needs for steroids or dosage increase, needs for antibiotics, WBC count, PCT levels and FEV1%.
resultsAt baseline, two groups were identical regarding clinical, laboratory and symptom score. Probability of the antibiotics usage in the PCT group (46.1%) was lower than that in the control group (74.8%) (χ2 = 21.97, p < 0.001. RR = 0.561, 95% CI 0.441-0.713). PCT and IL-6 showed good diagnostic significance for bacterial asthma (r = 0.705, p = 0.003). The degrees of asthma control in patients were categorized to three levels and were comparable between the two groups at the six weeks follow-up period (χ2 = 1.62, p = 0.45). There were no significant difference regarding other secondary outcomes (p > 0.05).
conclusionsThe serum PCT concentration can be used to effectively determine whether the acute asthma patients have bacterial infections in the respiratory tract, and to guide the use of antibiotics in the treatment of acute asthma exacerbations, which may substantially reduce unnecessary antibiotic use without compromising the therapeutic outcomes.
trial registrationICTRP ChiCTR-TRC-12002534.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.